For an indulgent treat yesterday I ate a couple of servings, maybe a few, of Chili Cheese Fritos, which resulted in having heartburn so bad that when I got into bed I couldn’t sleep. As I rolled around uncomfortably, I was reminded of how I shouldn’t eat that kind of stuff, and should be getting more exercise, and maybe lay off the ice tea after 7, but you know, it tasted so good! I finally got up for an antacid, placing the calcium communion disc on my tongue where it began to dissolve, accompanied by the curious echoing sound of dwarves chipping away in the mines – the antacid was clicking loudly against my night guard, apparently of its own accord. Meanwhile, Joe twitched and snored away next to me, content as Old Yeller. I started thinking of calling him Old Silver. (Uncharitably, as I love Joe’s silver hair – he’s a damn handsome man! Which always leads me to that X-files episode where Michael McKean/Fletcher Freaky-Friday’s – I know! I used a movie title as a verb! – Mulder’s body and looks in the mirror and says, “You’re a damn handsome man!”) But just in my head. At night, when I can’t sleep, and he can.

I felt like maybe I’d be slipping into dreamtime soon when the name of a salad dressing that was escaping both of us during a dinnertime discussion of the iceberg lettuce salads our mothers used to make regularly when we were young popped into my head. I rose from bed and tiptoed into the bathroom where I did a slow motion, super sneaky quiet ninja search for the dry erase marker I use to write on the mirror sometimes. I wanted to let Joe know I had remembered the name, and that I had been wrong at my insistence earlier that it was simply French dressing. It was a futile search. I tried several different items at hand, including a peachy lip liner, green eyeliner, and mood-lipstick that changes colors when you put it on that I won as a prize for winning a costume contest at a long-ago spy party, but none was showing up legibly on the mirror. Finally my eyes dropped to the soap in front of me. I scrawled “Catalina” on the mirror at what I guessed was eye-level for Joe. As I donned a robe and headed for the living room to read until I got sufficiently tired, I hope he realizes what I mean when he sees it, and isn’t thinking of a scary movie moment, discordant knife-wielding music soaring as he squints at the ghostly word in his sleepy state, and believes that when he found my spot in bed empty I was abducted and this was my last desperate clue. Because that’s the obvious conclusion I would jump to at 6 in the morning. Oh, what Chili Cheese Fritos will do…